Seventy years of Britain's reign, and it all began in the savannah of Kenya.
Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96 and will leave a date etched in the history of the country that was then still a British colony. On 6 February 1952, during a safari that she had dreamt of since she was a young girl, a sort of deferred honeymoon, realised precisely because of her father's poor health, who asked her to undertake a trip representing the Commonwealth nations, she received the news of the sudden death of her father, King George VI, at only 57 years of age and had to return to London after seeing only Kenya, the first stop on a tour that was to last several months. The King had not been well, but had nevertheless decided, while convalescing, to go hare hunting on the Sandringham estate.

It was a beautiful day, which ended with dinner with his wife and second daughter, Princess Margaret.

Thousands of kilometres away, in Kenya, the eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, had also spent a wonderful day, seeing and filming with her portable camera rhinoceroses, warthogs, baboons and a herd of elephants, which had taken on an unusual pink colour from rolling around in the light dust in front of the Treetops Lodge on the Laikipia Plateau.

Elizabeth fell asleep in the suite on the ficus benjamin amidst the rustling of the wind and the babbling of nocturnal birds of prey, as her father left the kingdom of Britain to her in her sleep.
In Kenya they would have titled it 'The Day Elizabeth became the Queen of Trees'.
The chronicles of the time recounted:

'When the royal couple stepped out into the hot Nairobi sun, no one knew that the girl who had arrived here as Princess Elizabeth would leave five days later as queen.

From the Kenyan capital, Elizabeth and Philip, accompanied by a small entourage, travelled for three hours to Sagana Lodge, a villa along a trout-filled stream, given to them by the Kenyan state as a wedding gift. On 5 February, the couple went further into the forest, to Treetops Hotel, a game viewing lodge. Their three-bed hut was reached by a rickety ladder and built in the branches of an ancient fig tree, overlooking a waterhole and salt marsh'.
In the morning, the news arrived in Nairobi. On 6 February, due to distance and communication difficulties, it took hours before news of the king's death reached rural Kenya. The message was passed to Philip's private secretary and from Philip to his wife on their return from the morning safari.

Without any ceremony or awareness, but in accordance with British tradition, Elizabeth had become queen.